Big Blue is history.

Victorians turned out in droves Saturday to give the nod to the city borrowing $49.2 million to replace the 86-year-old Johnson Street Bridge, known as the Blue Bridge.

A total of 16,542 votes were cast with 10,020 (60.6 per cent) voting Yes and 6,522 (39.4 per cent) No.

"It's great that the city is now in a position to move forward," said Mayor Dean Fortin, who has campaigned long and hard for the project.

"We can now start on a new bridge and make sure we can deliver what was promised on time and on budget."

Ross Crockford is a director of johnsonstreetbridge.org, the group working to preserve the existing Joseph Strauss-designed bridge.

He conceded that the people had spoken.

"But johnsonstreetbridge.org is not going away," he said.

"We are going to continue to monitor the project and we are going to continue to file Freedom of Information requests because this is the biggest infrastructure project in the city's history and we want to make sure that taxpayers are provided with all of the information about how it's being run."

The plan is to build a three-lane bridge, complete with on-street bike lanes, a multi-use path and dedicated sidewalk, immediately north of the existing bridge.

Road approaches on both sides of the bridge are to be improved and the "S" curve on the west side is to be eliminated. It is estimated construction will take four years.

It is still uncertain whether the new bridge will include a rail crossing for the E&N Rail line.

In order to pare costs, council eliminated the rail portion unless outside funding for it could be found.

At an estimated $77 million, the bridge replacement is the largest capital project in the city's history.

With interest rates at record lows and $21 million in federal funding secured, the city argued the timing was right to replace the Blue Bridge, whose electrical and mechanical systems are obsolete, concrete substructure is eroded and steel components suffering from pack rust.

But getting voter approval wasn't easy.

Eighteen months ago, council's rush to approve the project in hopes of attracting federal-provincial infrastructure funding led to a petition signed by more than 10 per cent of residents demanding a vote on borrowing money for a new bridge.

Opponents then argued the city had not given enough consideration to refurbishment, then estimated at $35 million.

Stung by that criticism, the city ordered staff to develop an apples-to-apples comparison of replacing versus refurbishing the bridge.

That comparison, which included the cost of developing detailed designs and an economic impact study, pushed the cost of refurbishment to an estimated $80 million.

Consultants said refurbishing the bridge would require removing it for at least a year. That closure alone would have had a negative economic impact on downtown Victoria of at least $13 million, according to the city.

The 16,459 ballots cast in the referendum, marked a 20 per cent increase over the 13,819 cast in the 2002 arena referendum, and was within a few hundred votes of the 17,080 votes cast in the 2008 general election.

bcleverley@timescolonist.com